Description
Book SynopsisI Saw Democracy Murdered is the memoir of Sam Russell (19152010), a communist journalist and a British volunteer with the anti-fascist Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War.
The book covers his experiences during the Spanish Civil War, his time as a journalist at The Daily Worker and The Morning Star newspapers, and his later disillusionment with Stalinism. In his capacity as a journalist, Russell travelled extensively and was frequently a front-row spectator at significant historical events, from the formerly occupied Channel Islands at the end of World War II to the show trials of communists in Eastern Europe in the 1950s. His report as Moscow correspondent on Nikita Khruschev's secret speech' condemning the crimes of Stalinism was lacerated by his newspaper''s editor, as was his interview with the legendary revolutionary leader, Che Guevara. Sam, whose friends included Donald Maclean, the British diplomat who spied for the Soviet Union during the
Table of Contents
Preface Introduction 1. The Road to Spain 2. Fighting Franco 3. From Rifle to Typewriter 4. Defeat in Spain 5. The World Goes to War 6. Wartime Britain 7. Back at the Worker 8. Believing the Unbelievable 9. The ‘Secret’ Speech 10. Trouble in Moscow 11. Farewell to Moscow 12. Meeting Che 13. Democracy Murdered 14. Back in Spain 15. Epilogue Appendix: Letters from Abroad Postscript: MI5 and My Family
